TITLE: Pfiesteria Now Suspected in 1987 Fish Kill; Delaware Officials Say Microbe May Have Caused Other Outbreaks
BYLINE: Peter S. Goodman; Todd Shields
CREDIT: Washington Post Staff Writers
EST. PAGES: 3
DATE: 09/17/97
DOCID: WP1126897
SOURCE: The Washington Post; WP
EDITION: FINAL; SECTION: A SECTION; PAGE: A01
CATEGORY: NEWS; NEWS MARYLAND; NEWS VIRGINIA
(Copyright 1997)
Maryland and Delaware officials said yesterday they suspect
that a toxic microbe recently found afflicting tributaries of
the Chesapeake Bay caused a major fish kill in 1987 in a river
near Rehoboth Beach, Del., and may have caused other cases of
sickened fish in the 1980s.
Maryland's top fishery official said reviews of old reports
of stricken and dead fish show that lesions like those recently
found on fish under attack by Pfiesteria piscicida in Maryland
have been seen on East Coast fish for years.
Delaware officials said recent laboratory tests show that
a massive fish kill in the Indian River near Rehoboth appears
to have been the work of Pfiesteria. Scientists at the time attributed
the death of 125,000 fish there to a lack of oxygen in the water.
Pfiesteria piscicida was first identified in a laboratory
in 1988 and was linked to fish kills in North Carolina estuaries
three years later. Nontoxic forms of the microbe have been found
from Delaware's Indian River inlet to the Gulf of Mexico. The
most severe toxic attacks occurred in tributaries of North Carolina's
Pamlico Sound, where as many as 1 billion Atlantic menhaden were
killed in a single incident.
Peter Jensen, director of the fisheries division of the
Maryland Department of Natural Resources, said a preliminary review
of old cases indicates that current Pfiesteria problems in Chesapeake
Bay tributaries may not be new or the result of accelerating water
quality problems.
"There isn't some smoking gun" that explains the
recent Pfiesteria attacks, he said. "This appears to have
been going on for some time."
If confirmed, officials' assessments of the Pfiesteria threat
would seem to support Virginia officials' contention that the
microbe has been at work for years in a moderately toxic concentration
in area waterways -- inflicting sores on fish and killing some.
Since Pfiesteria was blamed for two fish kills last month
in the Pocomoke River on Maryland's Eastern Shore and doctors
found signs of adverse health effects in people who had contact
with the river, Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D) has closed waterways
where 20 percent or more of the fish were found to have lesions.
The Pocomoke, the Chicamacomico River and Kings Creek, a tributary
of the Manokin River, remained closed yesterday.
But Virginia Gov. George Allen (R) said state officials
had received no reports of people suffering ill effects after
having been in contact with the Rappahannock River, where as many
as 75 percent of menhaden netted Monday were found to have lesions.
He said state officials would not close the river and create a
"panic" if there was no evidence of a threat to public
health. Virginia officials have not confirmed what is causing
the lesions on menhaden caught near Tappahannock, about 30 miles
upstream from the Chesapeake Bay.
Jensen said the new indications about Pfiesteria should
not be interpreted as undercutting Glendening's decision to close
Maryland waterways where sick fish are found.
"The governor here acted out of concern for public
health," Jensen said. "If he's erred, he's erred on
the side of caution."
Yesterday, Virginia Health Commissioner Randolph L. Gordon
repeated his call to Maryland authorities to release data from
a team of doctors who examined and found skin lesions, memory
loss and breathing problems among 28 people who had contact with
Pfiesteria-infested rivers on the lower Eastern Shore.
Of the 28 tested, 14 had suffered mental abnormalities,
said Maryland Secretary of Health and Mental Hygiene Martin P.
Wasserman, who pledged to share quickly a report being prepared
by the team of private Maryland doctors.
"It will stand up to the scrutiny of professional reading,"
Wasserman said. Sharing raw data with Virginia, he said, would
compromise the patients' confidentiality.
Past research on Pfiesteria's health effects on humans has
been inconclusive, and the Maryland team's findings represented
the first time an official agency said the microbe can harm humans
in its natural habitat.
Jensen said research published before the microorganism
was identified suggests that it may have been responsible for
lesions discovered on fish from Delaware to North Carolina from
1984 to 1986.
A federal research paper released by the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration in 1987 describes lesion-stricken
fish found in about 30 waterways from 1982 to 1986, he said.
Jensen said the lesions described in the paper are identical
to those discovered on fish in the Pocomoke, the Chicamacomico
and Kings Creek. Maryland officials have closed parts of those
waterways.
The NOAA study concluded that the lesions were caused by
ulcerative mycosis -- a fungal infection that causes bleeding
sores on fish. But the scientists who conducted that research
are revisiting it in light of recent revelations about Pfiesteria,
Jensen said.
"It's a valid assumption now, in light of our knowledge,
that it may very well have been Pfiesteria," Jensen said.
Similarly, Delaware officials now believe that the 1987
fish kill on the Indian River most likely was caused by Pfiesteria,
according to Sergio Huerta, a laboratory administrator for the
Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.
Delaware authorities, who saved water samples collected
at the site of the kill while it was underway, had them tested
in North Carolina by JoAnn Burkholder, a North Carolina State
University biologist who helped discover Pfiesteria. She confirmed
that the microbe was present in a toxic form during the 1987 kill,
Huerta said.
"We suspect that Pfiesteria, or a Pfiesteria-like organism,
was involved," said Christophe Tulou, secretary of the Delaware
environmental agency.
Charles Poukish, a Maryland natural resources specialist
who investigated many fish kills reported on Maryland waterways
over the last 12 years, said "very few" bore the physical
markers that scientists now associate with the killer microbe.
But, he said, one major exception was an outbreak in the
early 1990s of ulcerative mycosis. Poukish also wonders if that
fungus might be partly to blame for this summer's fish problems.
Staff writers Charles Babington, Todd Beamon, Spencer S. Hsu, Eric Lipton, Joby Warrick and Linda Wheeler contributed to this report.
Goodman reported from Shelltown, Md., and Hsu reported from Richmond.
ART: PHOTO,,Theresa Blackwell For Twp
CAPTION: Robin Tyler, an aquatic biologist with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources, came to Shelltown, Md., yesterday to learn about the microbe.
REGION: DE US MD; DELAWARE; UNITED STATES; MARYLAND
DESCRIPTORS: Delaware; Maryland; Rivers, streams, etc.; Fish; Animal diseases;
Water pollution; Eastern Shore; Microorganisms; ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS
ORGANIZATION: Indian River; Chesapeake Bay; Department Of Natural Resources; Rappahannock River; Pocomoke River
INDUSTRY: FOOD
PERSON: Parris N. Glendening; George Allen
OTHER TERMS: @Slug: A01PF